La question humaine

If I am tired and want some mind-numbing entertainment, I don't mind a film that presents its issues in black and white - the baddies are bad, the goodies are good and the moral dilemmas are no more taxing than first grade arithmetic.

Heartbeat Detector does not fall into that category. It is not entertainment. Everything about it says this is a film to think about and take seriously. The web of lies, the conflicts between different players' sense of reality, they all cry out to us: art-house, subtlety, layers of meaning. How disappointing then that the film gradually degenerates into a simplistic (and false) moral message.

The true awfulness of the film is only discovered at the very end when the final scene thrusts its trite moral message upon us in a way that clearly implies (I won't spoil it for you by saying how) that the viewer is being blessed with an earth-shattering profundity. In fact it is nothing more profound than a reminder of something which has been presented in the cinema many times before, and presented with more artistry, subtley and ambiguity. I am being a bit cryptic to avoid giving it all away. Surprise is the one good thing about the ending and if I removed that, nothing good would remain.

The film has other flaws too, already discussed by other reviewers, but I give it 4 stars because I agree with some of the positive comments made.

This is an interesting movie. The pace is slow, and the subject is painful, so it takes some effort to watch it from end to end. But in the end, it's worth it.

The music is very effective in inducing empathy with the main character, who's going through a life-changing crisis.

The main point is that today's corporate speak is dehumanizing ('units' to designate workers, 'efficiency', 'objectives'), in the same way as the Nazi's ruthless technical language of death was. Language can be a tool of destruction with a clean conscience.

Not perfect - a bit over-obvious sometimes. Also, the people speak like books, which, for me, induced a distance and made suspension of disbelief harder. Good acting though.

A highly intelligent, interesting film that does a great job of showing the impact that the ripples of Nazi Germany still have on the modern world. It's half a study of that, half a character study of Mathieu Amalric's character, a psychologist for a large, anonymous company. This character is completely breaking down throughout the film as a result of living in such a shady, paranoia filled society. I have to admit that there is some stuff that went over my head. There's a subplot involving an almost underground society of these business types who take these boats to a place where they pop drugs and rave. I'm sure that the whole thing has a symbolic meaning but for me it just provided a stunning catharsis and more depth into Amarlic's character. His performance in the film is absolutely stunning. It's a very quiet, subtle portrayal that is one of the most...calculated performances I've seen in quite a while. You can tell that he put so much thought into every move that the character makes. Every turn of the body, slight movement of the eyes, it's all important for the performance. But the genius of him as an actor is that you realize he is putting importance into all of those moments, but he is so great at putting himself into the character that you just think it's important for the character and don't think about the man acting as the character until after the film is over. A very intelligent, complex performance in an intelligent, complex film.

I'll start with what I liked about 'Heartbeat Detector'. It's poetical, discursive style is something I love in cinema when it's done well. I long for stories that break from the formulaic and say what they have to say while stretching the boundaries of cinematic story telling; 'Heartbeat Detector' is aiming for that. It's beautifully photographed too, it's washed out colours and florescent glare a study in disjointed alienation.

Oh, and there is some great acting going on too, but I'm going to have to get trite at this point, because I'm afraid it's all a wasted effort.

At heart this is a morality play, but it's lesson is a perversity, in that there is none at all. It's a meditation on the horrors on the Nazi death camps, that leads the protagonist to realise his role in firing employees in a downsizing European multi-national may equate to the culpability of Nazi functionaries involved in the slaughter of the death camps.

Many people will find this insulting, and it is, doubly so. Insulting to those who died in the Nazi death camps and insulting to victims whose deaths could be found comparable today.

A message to the film makers. Do you want to make a film about a man who slowly realises the banality of evil that lead to the death camps is still with us in the 21st century ? Perhaps ponder questions like why several million children in Africa die every year from diseases due to a lack of clean drinking water, while we in the West spend more than is needed to prevent this on the frivolity of bottled mineral water.

Instead how ironic under the banner of exploring awareness of social problems, the film makers show about as much social awareness as the aristocracy before the storming of the Bastille.

I last saw Mathieu Amalric as Jean-Do in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Winner of a César for that performance and two others, he is an accomplished actor. He displays his considerable skills in this film, which has him in the role of a psychologist who must interpret words and actions of others.

He is charged with assessing the mental state of the company CEO, Mathias Jüst, played brilliantly by Michael Lonsdale, who has two César nominations himself, and a BAFTA nomination for the 1973 version of The Day of the Jackal. This occurs soon after the company undergoes a massive downsizing.

The verbal give and take between the two was captivating. It became really interesting when Jüst sprung upon him that he knew he was being investigated, and gave information the reached back to the Third Reich.

The involvement of the principles in the extermination of Jews was reveled in a way that was similar to the discussion of the reduction of employees in the company. People were referred to as loads or units in each case, not as humans.

The inhuman language of extermination becomes the inhuman language of business, and the children of the Reich are left to deal with their father's sins.

Powerful.